Disclaimer: All the opinions expressed in this article
are the opinions of Dr. Seshadri Kumar alone and should not be construed to
mean the opinions of any other person or organization, unless explicitly stated
otherwise in the article.

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This question was asked on quora about a year ago, and I am
reproducing here the answer I gave there for the benefit of my readers who do
not have access to quora. Here is the
answer in its context in quora.

If by chivalry we mean nobility of character, the ability to
keep your word under all circumstances, devotion to duty, and fairness in war,
Bhishma towers above anyone else in this regard.

Before I talk about Bhishma, I'd like to dispose of other
contenders that may be spoken about, so that my reasons for picking Bhishma
will be clear.

Arjuna:

Arjuna is often spoken about as a very chivalrous
warrior. His speech to Uttara before
they meet the army of the Kauravas and defeat them bespeaks his nature as one
who despises none, for which he has earned the name Bibhatsu. (Bibhatsa is the term in Sanskrit for the
emotion of disgust, and the Bibhatsu means one who shows disgust towards no
one.) Arjuna, instead of despising
Uttara for his cowardice, seeks to embolden him to raise himself and show the
courage that is expected of him. There
are many other incidents in his life which show his chivalrous nature. Yet there are three incidents in the war
which show him to be less than chivalrous.
Although he does these unchivalrous acts at the bidding of Krishna, that
doesn't excuse the fact that they are unchivalrous.

The first is the killing of Bhishma. Knowing fully well that Bhishma would not
fight a woman, Arjuna fights behind Shikhandi and kills Bhishma. The second is the slaying of Bhurishravas,
who was fighting Satyaki. Satyaki was
prostate and defeated, and Bhurishravas was about to kill him. Arjuna shot an arrow that cut off the hand of
Bhurishravas who was about to kill Satyaki.
By attacking an opponent who wasn't even facing him, Arjuna committed an
unchivalrous act. The third, of course,
is the killing of Karna. By killing
Karna, who was not fighting him, who had laid down his bow and arrows and was
trying to extricate the wheel of his chariot from the ground, Arjuna again was
unchivalrous. In my mind, these three
acts make Arjuna ineligible.

Karna and Drona:

To try to burn your enemies in a lac palace or cheat them at
a game of dice would automatically disqualify someone who hopes to be labeled
chivalrous, but in addition, Karna also has behaved unchivalrously on the
battlefield. He helped kill Abhimanyu,
along with 5 other great warriors of the Kauravas, when Abhimanyu was fighting
them singlehanded after being trapped in the Chakravyuha. On Drona's advice, Karna shoots arrows to cut
off the reins of the horses using which Abhimanyu was steering his chariot - and
that too from behind. This act
disqualifies both Karna and Drona.

Karna is a mixed bag, however, since he did give up his
greatest protection, his armour, in order to adhere to his vow that he would
refuse no gift to anyone after his prayers.
He also spared the life of his brothers Yudhisthira, Bhima, and Nakula
on the battlefield in order to keep his promise to his mother Kunti that he
would only kill Arjuna or die by Arjuna's hand.

Drona has one more strike against him - the treatment of
Ekalavya, the Nishada prince who learned archery on his own, using only a clay
image of Drona as an inspiration, and became a better archer than even
Arjuna. Because of caste bias and
because of his favoritism towards Arjuna, Drona commits the very ignoble act of
asking Ekalavya for his thumb as guru dakshina, knowing fully well that having
given that, Ekalavya could never again hope to be as good an archer.

Duryodhana:

Although Duryodhana behaved egregiously almost his whole
life, scheming against the Pandavas - incidents like the palace of lac, trying
to poison Bhima, cheating at the game of dice, etc. - for the entire duration
of the war he behaved chivalrously - with the exception of the death of
Abhimanyu. He died a warrior's death,
and his death was achieved unchivalrously by Bhima striking him below the
navel, which was a violation of the rules of war.

Krishna:

I don't think I need to say much about why Krishna doesn't
deserve this title - most everything he achieved in the Mahabharata war was
done by behaving without chivalry - these include the deaths of Bhishma, Drona
(killed because of a lie about the death of his son), Karna, Duryodhana, and
Jayadratha (darkening the sky and making people believe the sun had set when it
really hadn't). Krishna, of course,
justifies everything by saying that the ends (the defeat of the Kauravas)
justify the means (trickery). Be that as
it may, what he did certainly wasn't chivalrous.

Yudhishthira:

Yudhishthira is often regarded as a noble person. Indeed, often in the epic he is considered to
be the epitome of dharma. Even people
like Bhishma defer to his understanding of Dharma. But Yudhishthira has three fatal strikes
against him. The first one, which is the
only one Vyasa seems to consider, is the fact that he lied on the battlefield
about Ashwatthama. The Pandavas, on
Krishna's urging, decide that they will tell Drona the lie that his son
Ashwatthama is dead. Drona does not
believe it and, to verify it, comes to Yudhishthira to ask if the news is true
- for he is very sure that Yudhishthira would never tell a lie, not for the
kingship of the three worlds.

Yudhishthira proves him wrong - and goes along with the lie,
with the consequence that Drona lays down his weapons and goes into yoga, upon
which Dhrishtadyumna cuts his head off.
It is for this sin that Yudhishthira spends a sixteenth day of his life
in hell.

But in my opinion, Yudhishthira had two other strikes
against him. One was his excessive
fondness for dice. In the final ascent
to heaven that the five brothers and Draupadi attempt, Bhima asks Yudhishthira
what his crime was that he was falling down from the mountain. Yudhishthira replies that he was overly
attached to food and was a glutton. If this is the standard, surely addiction
to gambling should be a higher crime? In
addition, Yudhishthira abandoned his wife, enough in my mind and for my
understanding of chivalry to be considered ineligible. For more on this, see Can
you Compare Today’s Rape Victims to Draupadi?

So now, having disposed of his rivals, I come to Bhishma.

A man who would keep his word at any cost; a prince who gave
up kingship for the sake of his father's happiness; a young man who gave up
married life simply so his father could marry the girl he had set his heart on;
who served his king and kingdom like a loyal and faithful knight until his
death; and who, even when his life depended on it, refused to break his oath
never to fight a woman and hence ultimately gave up his life in the cause of
dharma - Bhishma is my vote for the most chivalrous person in the Mahabharata.

4 comments:

To identify the "most chivalrous" person, one would first have to define how one weighs different attributes relative to each other. Your weighting in favor of keeping one's word and following dharma is implicit in this article. However, we should perhaps also note that Bhishma sided with the Kauravas and preferred the "keeping my word" attribute (which is more a personal honour attribute) over justice. Not to say this necessarily knocks him off the top position, but it should be weighed against his other qualities.

Sorry for the late response to your comment, and first of all thanks for taking the trouble to comment.

Yes, Bhishma sided with the Kauravas. Was he wrong to do so? There are two issues to be considered when judging this.

One is whether Duryodhana's claim to the throne of Hastinapura is wrong in the first place. When we are taught the epic by our parents, we usually assume that the Pandavas were the good guys and the Kauravas were the bad guys. But when you read the epic carefully, it is not so black-and-white. See my other post for a detailed explanation of this point: http://www.leftbrainwave.com/2014/05/why-krishna-sided-with-pandavas.html. Suffice it to say that it was not obvious that Yudhishthira should inherit the kingdom, and quite likely this did weigh on Bhishma.

Two, Bhishma's promise of loyalty to the throne of Hastinapura. Once Dhritarashtra could not be convinced to prevail upon his son to return the Pandavas' share of the kingdom back to them, and war was inevitable, Bhishma was loyalty-bound to support the kingdom of Hastinapura in whatever decision the king took, right or wrong. He may have preferred the Pandavas, and indeed his favoritism towards them (for reasons that may be justifiable - such as their nobility of character) found an outlet when he showed them how they could kill him - by placing Shikhandi in front of Arjuna - a device that he himself communicated to Yudhishthira. In fact, I would say that his keeping his promise to defend Hastinapura even though his heart rebelled against fighting the Pandavas is another example of his chivalry. This is kind of mixed, as he made sure he was true to the letter in his loyalty to the Kauravas, but not in spirit as he showed the Pandavas how to kill him.

Interesting post as usual. Mahabharath is a bundle of contradictory views and that makes it special and interesting. Bhishma is present in the hall when Draupadi is disrobed and she even chides him for that. Bhishma is unable to decide what is right in that context. The epic highlights the truth that there is no permanent right and wrong and the context is relevant in deciding which is dharmic or not. This appreciation of 'grey' is missing in many a religions like Buddhism. No wonder, guided by black and white philosophies, MK Gandhi could not steer the country in a meaningful direction

Actually, I would interpret this episode quite differently from the way you have interpreted it.

Actually, Bhishma was quite clear on what was right in the assembly hall when Draupadi was being disrobed. He was in distress that a princess like Draupadi was being treated like a slave; but he was not able to find anything in the laws of those days that would prohibit what Duryodhana, Dussasana, Sakuni, and Karna were doing to her and to the Pandavas.

The fact was that once someone was someone else's slave, they could do nothing about how they were treated. The Kauravas were within their rights (according to the laws of those days) to do ANYTHING with Draupadi as they wished, as long as it was accepted that she was their slave.

So the key debate in the assembly, if you read the Mahabharata, was not about whether what Dussasana was doing was wrong, but whether Draupadi had been fairly won in the game of dice.

What Bhishma confesses to not being able to decide is whether Draupadi has been fairly won. He even says that it seems to him that she has been fairly won - and given that Yudhisthira has not cried foul about cheating from Sakuni's side, Bhishma, though distressed by Draupadi's plight, doesn't see a way out for her.

There is no discussion on whether the husband Yudhisthira has a right to gamble his wife - this is accepted as legal.

I have discussed this in detail in my previous post: http://www.leftbrainwave.com/2013/05/can-you-compare-todays-rape-victims-to.html

So, in fact, the issue of whether a husband can stake his wife is seen in black-and-white - as an acceptable decision - even though in the context of what is happening, a noble princess is being cruelly treated.

The issue of whether a slave can be disrobed or even raped is looked at in a black-and-white way - i.e., yes, you can disrobe her - even though in this context, it should be thought of as wrong - Draupadi is a noble lady and the wife and daughter of kings.

So I see this episode as treating things NOT with any shade of grey, but purely in a black-and-white way.

If not for the superstitious nature of those days, Draupadi's horror would never have ended. Her agony ended not because anyone thought in shades of grey, but because several ill-omens suddenly started appearing, and the superstitious people of the day believed that these were a judgement on what was happening there and so decided to free Draupadi.